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Marketing and Sponsorship

Penguins' Crosby Continues To Boast Unmatched Marketability Among NHLers

The Penguins can advance to the Stanley Cup Final with a win tonight over the Senators, and while C Sidney Crosby is the "most sought after name in hockey" by various brands, the public "knows very little about his identity beyond the rink," according to Dan Robson of SPORTSNET.ca. Various brands over his 12-year career "have lined up" to work with Crosby, but he "seems content to stay out of the glare of the modern celebrity." Crosby is the "anti-celebrity, the superstar we’ll never know the way we seem to know most other superstars." But that has not "lessened his popularity one bit." Crosby’s jersey is "still the league’s best-seller," and his $4.5M in annual sponsorship revenue "outstrips any other player in the game." Crosby and his team have been "carefully maintaining" his image "ever since he emerged as a peewee superstar." And the blueprint they "created in building the Crosby marketing machine is the one now being followed by the game’s next generation." Crosby's agent, CAA's Pat Brisson, said that from the "very beginning Crosby’s image was the result of carefully selected relationships." Brisson knew corporations would be "lining up to work with the kid, but Crosby had one job that had to come before everything else: playing hockey." So Brisson "guarded his prized client like an overprotective parent." While he has "lent his likeness" to brands like Telus, Bell, Kellogg’s, Hallmark and GoPro in smaller campaigns, his relationships with Tim Hortons, Pepsi and Adidas are the "long-term foundation of his lucrative marketing strategy." The selectivity around that core group has "created a sense of exclusivity in the products Crosby lends his likeness to, which makes the endorsements he does agree to more valuable" (SPORTSNET.ca, 5/21). 

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